KinnPorsche

Trashy guilty pleasure with a side of good smut

Kinn is the second son of a mafia boss who meets the barfly, Porsche. With no parents and a younger brother to care for, Porsche is willing to do just about anything for money. Following an excellent first episode, he gets recruited to be a bodyguard for Kinn's gangster family. As the two fall in love, they find themselves mired in generic gangster shootouts and a complex family scandal that involves the mystery of Porsche's dead parents.

Which is to say, that on paper KinnPorsche sounds like fun. In reality, it's A-grade, rolled-gold trash full of Makjang twists, inconsistent characterisation and a whole lot of sexy boys doing sexy things - most of it non-consensual or involving incest.

KinnPorsche is essentially a fetish drama, with the various fetishes interspersed with something that resembles a plot only in passing: it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, doesn't make much sense and isn't important anyway, frankly.

The show is also a tonal mess, with different direction and production styles clashing (the first episode is surprisingly good, the next two are confusing and contradictory, and the tones clash regularly from there).

But once you get past the idea that this show should be taken in any way seriously - and if you're in the right mood - it could be your latest guilty pleasure watch as it quickly descends into a morass of hot guys boning; sometimes drugged, sometimes drunk, sometimes underage, and sometimes as a result of chained-up basement torture. And nearly always when they're related in some way.

There's a lot of gratuitous sex and mindless violence and the odd, weird, fluffy date episode, which doesn't fit at all. But, I guess, for some people fluffy dating is their fetish so that's here for you as well.

The acting is actually pretty good, especially for a Thai BL, and the sex scenes are genuinely steamy as long as you handwave the rape, incest, torture, murder and creepy borderline paedophilia.

Kinn rapes Porsche, gaslights him, abuses him, manipulates him and yet the relationship somehow seems the most healthy when compared to the other ones in the show. Especially Vegas/Pete ["Nobody can hurt you but me!"] and the super creepy Kim/Porschay ["You're my underage cousin but I'm going to manipulate you into kissing me anyway"].

Anyway, put your brain on hold and enjoy the abuse trainwreck. Otherwise, steer clear.

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A thorough disappointment

KinnPorsche the Series actually said bring sexy back. Sexy being Non Consensual drugged sex and varying forms of unacknowledged sexual assault between a mafia boss and a trauma-bonded man he rapes after kidnapping and making an offer he can’t refuse on pain of harm to his family.

This story depicts a full on masc4masc agenda, prioritising of white, cis, male, western, English speaking fan aesthetics and preferences, while sidelining femme characters who would normally be the stars in an Asian BL, in favour of cis men who would undoubtedly screen out most of the mlm who paid good money to support KPTS with: “No [Redacted], No [Redacted], No [Redacted].

Clearly the studio/crew comprised mainly of cis gay men wants to appeal to more men - a worthy goal, and men want to see lots of casual sex, but the legacy of Kinn Porsche’s pornificaction of live action BL could very well mean very little attention will be paid by investors to innovative, high quality BL storytelling that treats complex themes with even the minimum care and attention they deserve, for some time to come. “Fetishizing fujoshis” will still somehow get the blame for this but I can assure you women fans of BL did not ask for this.

Everything that women, queer or not, and femmes ran away from mainstream gay media to escape was forced back down their throats for 14 excruciating and traumatic weeks with the blanket hyper masculine, Stepford wife agenda of this series.

There is a bigger issue with what happens to art when big capital gets involved and the way it tends to reenforce the status quo but that’s a separate discussion. It is the production company first and foremost that is guilty of professional malpractice and it is disturbing but inevitable that the unethical practices behind the scenes - sexual harassment, homophobia and misogynistic behaviour, embarrassing scandals and infighting, with no consequences, are exactly the same ones reflected in how the story is conveyed onscreen. They are the same people after all; the art can never be better than the artist.

The basic problem with this Anti-BL is that the writing, mediocre as it was, is consistently from the perspective of the rapists/predators and the writers repeatedly insert textual ambiguity that invites the viewer to empathise with the power-holders rather than the victims of abuse which is the antithesis of romance BL. Spoiler Alert: This profound power imbalance is never eroded throughout 14 episodes.

In both sets of rape scenes the power-holder has emotional depth, complicated backstory and whimsical feelings of guilt along with innocence behind his actions while the victim has a disproportionate amount of motivation, agency and accountability attributed to him for the sexual assaults he endures - very much upholding a regressive status quo that already affects queer men severely.

Every flaw in this blatantly homonormative series is actually intentional and that’s what makes it so alarming. Both the production on screen and the way the studio treats its actors and fans, especially the psychological operations delivered through marketing, is seriously unethical especially from a well capitalised studio that has so many eyes globally on its first so-called BL, and its audience was so large it could end up giving the genre in Thailand a name that will be hard to recover from, but at the same time be so commercially sucessful judging by views, that investment for more BoC content could crowd out investment for more high quality productions such as from Nadao which are starved for investment while producing much higher quality series which are actually BLs. What’s the central conflict? We still have no idea despite the new characters and arcs forced into the final minutes of the final episode, not to conclude the story but to open the door to more exploitative money-making for a threatened season 2.

Even in the way writers/directors treated the first rape scene the focus was more on diminishing KP fan’s dislike of Kinn so he could be effortlessly “redeemed” enough for fan service to be lucrative, and less on portraying bad men doing bad things, which is why they couldn’t commit to delivering a rape scene as what it wasn’t- a rape scene, as they ought.

Writers didn’t have the skill to write a compelling redemption arc so they made the bad men “less bad” in the first place; according to the writers Porsche and Pete “welcomed their rapes” as well as their emotional and abuse. Logics of good storytelling were abandoned to prioritise commercial marketability of the actors.

Furthermore KP is fujoshi bait, what you get when your intention is to make toys for boys but you need the superior numbers, social media engagement and higher propensity to spend on their faves that only women bring to fandom but men do not. Hence the upside down, inappropriate and superficial application of some BL tropes which shows the team failed to do its research into the work BL tropes are meant to be doing. Why try to enter the BL industry if you have this level of contempt for its defining features of its fans?

Targeting women fans shows at least they understand the business of BL even if not the substance of the content. Because commercial viability of the ships was always more important that telling a good story in BoC decision making, is for eg why fans ended up in a virtual civil war over the fact that CPs that were given elaborate focus in the marketing promos ended up having little (Vegas/Pete) or no story arc whatsoever (Time/Tay) in the actual script.

Instead of a bad-faith production that looked like it was comprised of scraps off the cutting room floor, Kinn Porsche The Series could’ve hired quality screenwriters to create something awesome and chose not to but to spend instead on cynical marketing tactics and over-saturated colour grading. If an exploitative, mediocre drama with stressful and exasperating mess in front and behind the camera, topped off with pointless sex scenes that are decidedly Not sexy is what you’re looking for, then this series is for you.

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Not up to my standards softcore fetish porn disguised unsuccessfully as mafia drama

This drama could be used as proof that the Halo effect is very real and powerful (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect). The plot was full of holes, every relationship was utterly toxic and the mafia element existed for the coolness factor without actually being utilized.


What carried the entire show was the careful selection of handsome men as the main cast. NOTHING ELSE. If the same things were done or said by ugly men, the show would have flopped 100%. Kinn exploits Porsche knowing his desperate financial position, rapes him, has zero trust towards him and becomes abusive even under suspicion that Porsche has been unfaithful (bathroom scene with Vegas is a good example). Kinn-Chay are a textbook grooming case, where an idol manipulates their fan who happens to be a minor (disturbing and disgusting). I won't even start with serial rapist, bipolar, psychopath Vegas who ''changes'' under the magical influence of his kidnapped/raped/tortured victim Pete (who has Stockholm syndrome). It is clear that the people writing such nonsense have zero understanding of psychiatry because they romanticize rape and abuse and no, psychopaths don't change and you can't ''save'' them with your love.

As if all that mess wasn't enough, towards the end, there is an incest element added with Porsche's mother being the adoptive sister of Kinn's father. This reminds me a lot of a third rate heterosexual lakorn plot and not of the pioneering, ground breaking BL that they claim to be. It was also extremely unecessary.

There is way too much comedy and fluffy scenes that come semi-randomly and don't match the show's supposedly mafia atmosphere and other cringe moments, for example Vegas speaking English at random times. What's up with that nonsense? I would understand if his character was a foreigner or something, but nothing is explained and it's honestly annoying.

It is clear at this point, that the producers know that the BL market is full of hypocritical people who pretend to want to watch dramas, but in reality just want to watch gay fetish porn, otherwise there would not have been so much emphasizing on sex scenes and so much less on the actual plot. A lot of the couples have nothing in common besides sex (with Kinn-Porsche being the best example of incompatible toxic couple who ends up having sex after every argument that was never properly resolved). Often it felt like different people direct different episodes, with the first one being much better and more serious than the nonsense comedy second one. All over the place production is an understatement.

The acting was decent, the music was decent, the scenery was decent, but the overall result is not up to my standards and it's the fault of the producers and the creepy authors (I have read the book and it's an abomination worship and romanticizing of murder and rape, way worse than the series).

If you don't believe me, go on tumblr and twitter and see how many people are talking about the plot (literally nobody unless they refer to sex scenes) and how many are worshipping the actors similar to kpop stans and other disturbed celebrity cult followings (you will be seeing comments like ''you can torture me anytime Bible, step on my neck Kinn and other products of the sexual frustration of individuals in need of help).

Would not rewatch.

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A good enough drama if you're looking for pointless angst

Honestly, this show is entirely overhyped and absolutely not the "best bl" out there. In fact, it's extremely far from it.

I'll start off with what this show does well. Firstly, the camera work, editing, tensions between characters, and props are all very good. The acting was good, but arguably not where it mattered most. It definitely pulls you out of the scenes sometimes, but it's nothing too harsh. Generally speaking, the visuals of this show are sure to not disappoint, however, that's all that this show did flawlessly.

If you think about your favorite "classic", you may notice that quality-wise, they don't typically hold up to today's standards. So what brings you back to them? Why, even after possible decades, do you still enjoy it? Most reasons would be something like a good plot, good acting, sensibility, relatability, etc. Those exact elements are exactly what Kinnporche heavily lacks. Without its budget and time to be made, the show would honestly have nothing worth your while.

As for the plot, it has a good enough start. It's interesting and definitely grabs your attention in a time where most queer stories revolve around a cute, innocent, school love story. But the more you watch, the less sense anything makes until it finally unravels itself entirely. The way this plot is written, you'd honestly be baffled at which characters were born into the mafia and which weren't seeing as they all have the same morals. Yes, this show is dark, but absolutely not within reason, given that most of the messed-up scenes could be cut out entirely and the show would still work just fine. And to make the characters' terrible actions worse, no one learns from anything. The entire series is one long loop of making a mistake, suffering the consequences, learning nothing at all, and repeating it over and over until the show ends about 60x more messy than necessary.

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A refreshing concept with a mediocre outcome

I didn’t have any definite expectations, but atleast I wanted action and badass characters. It’s a mafia themed series after all. However, this series did not know what it wanted to be. It neither ended up as a mafia series nor a rom-com, it ended up being a big mess.

The plot at first starts off fine, but due to most of the comedy and romance, it goes south. The plot lines either were forgotten or anti-climatic. There could be a scene which was serious and afterwards they threw in a slapstick comedy/romantic scene, it easily ruined the mood. In the end this series would’ve been great off without any comedy at all.

Kinn and Porsche’s relationship just wasn’t it. They had okay introductions individually but their relationship’s build-up was questionable. I don't really get why they even had interest in each other in the first place. They had two unnecessary scenes, a questionable consent scene and a no consent scene. Even worse was that this was swept under the rug way too easily. They also had too many comedy scenes, which made them very unserious to me. Also too many intimate scenes, could’ve done less of them too, just less of them in general thanks.

Them as characters are pretty weak. Porsche is very gullible, he trusted Kinn and Vegas way too easily. Kinn is simply not a great boss. I don't feel like he is suitable as the leader of the main family at all, Kim would've fit better, heck even Tankhun would’ve suited better as the leader. If Kinn and Porsche had character development I would've liked them but they didn’t, they stayed the same from the beginning to the end.

Kim and Porschay were just there. They didn’t fit into this series and they didn’t add anything to the story.

The only characters I like in the end are Vegas and Pete. They were honestly the only reason why I finished this series. By having Kinn and Porsche as the main characters they obviously had the most scenes but so many of their scenes could’ve been replaced with more Vegas and Pete scenes. They were such a wasted potential, they were very interesting as individuals and as a couple. Such a shame.

Conclusion: I was entertained but in the end I wouldn’t recommend this at all. If you’re looking for a serious mafia series with badass characters, good character development and decent plot, you better wait a bit more for such a series to be released. If you want an unserious series, with comedy, romance and a few action scenes, then this series is for you.

PS. I have not read any of the original work, so this review is purely based on the series alone.

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Fucked up people, Fucked up plot and a whole lot of Fucking

Rearly has a drama been so inconsistent in quality, plot, characters... ok more or less everything....As this drama is one of those you will have to turn off your brain to watch and instead turn on your thirst as it is completely flooded with thirst scenes and not so much plot most of the drama. As very little makes sence, untill the end where most of it comes together in an oddly confusing way, but yhe good type of confusing...

The story served (without spoilers) is basically a poor, strong male lead in need who likes to fuck a lot, and gets Stockholm Syndrome from a guy in the mob and now he suddenly only wants to fuck the same guy. They also have a lot of guns (both of the flesh and type you shoot to kill), and well earned trust issues.

This is not the only guy with Stockholm Syndrome as it seems to be part of the theme.

The other theme is an exploration of truth, who needs one that actually goes along with reality when you can twitst your own? Just shoot to kill and hope the people with amnesia don't regain their memory and all will be fine (if they regain their memory just shoot them too).

The music, lighting and all round visuals where breathtaking.

Side characters range from so lovable I cant believe they where not the mains to oh please let me skipp this guy before I drop this drama.

All in all pretty entertaining, but I do not really get the hype.

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Rate 10/10 for fun and 1/10 for storyline

All the rave reviews, mad fans in love on comments, all the hype - I am weak willed, I succumbed to KP mania and ended up binge watching it!
First and foremost this series is a COMEDY, to be more precise, it is a spoof of all mafia movies! It takes place in a country called BL-land where they speak thai and sometimes english for no apparent reason but to sound cool! Parents in this country are all straight and they only have boys who are ALL gay! The main economy of this country is managed by the elegantly dressed mobsters! The police and the hospital do not exist: mobsters kill each other with impunity and the doctors and nurses treat the patients at their own homes in their king sized beds!
It took me about 8 episodes of incredulity to finally understand that this series SHOULD NOT in any case be taken seriously! I was so frustrated until it dawned on me that I am supposed to be laughing at the unbelievably ridiculous plot! After I did that, what a ride, what a rollercoaster ride it became!

What I liked:
- the comedy: Tankhun is the King
- Porsche's smile
- buttonless shirts
- cinematography (those love scenes were hooooot!)
- Pete (who looks uncannily like Job who played "Nut" in TMOTB so every time I saw his crooked smile I thought of teddybears!)
- Jeff Satur (how can he possibly be be so handsome and so talented?)

What I did not like:
- the eyebrows and the actor who came with them
- plot full of toxic behaviours (Kinn making out with drugged Porsche, Stockholm syndrome Pete & Vegas)
- Kinn & Porsche being so lovey dovey in ep. 11, I was seriously getting diabetes and expecting to see flowers popping around them like in a manga!
- final plot twists worthy of the best US soaps (like Dallas or Dynasty-the classics are still the best!)
- italian mob ripped from Vincenzo together with wine and classical music!

As for the soundtrack, I did not notice anything special about it.

This series reminds me in a way of TharnType with it toxic silly plot and great chemistry between the leads. Would I watch it again? Probably ! When I need something silly and hot to take my mind off of the daily life struggles, this along with TT is what the doctor prescribed! Mindless fun, just entertainment!

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Disappointing with a capital D

Before getting mad at this review, lemme just say this is one's opinion just like anyone else's. If you liked it, that's great, my opinion shouldn't be an offence to yours. To reiterate, this is an opinion.
This BL was definitely up there in terms of hype for me. I was looking forward to watching such an action-packed drama, and while it delivered for some, a lot of it fell back for me.

What makes it good?
I enjoyed the use of colours and lighting for some of the scenes to give it more of a mafia aesthetic. The scenery for some episodes worked splendidly and there's so much more than just one simple location. It added a lot more to the overall dark raunchiness of this show. The acting is great overall, Bible and Apo being among my favourite actors of the show. Some of these actors are rookies which amazes me how they took on such a complex role and nailed it super well. Born actors is an understatement. The psychological aspects of the show are also intriguing to me, because of its complex nature in KinnPorsche. I don't know if it was intentional in some parts, but it made the characters a little more lifelike.

What makes it bad?
The subplots are one of the biggest problems I struggled with while watching this. I became so lost due to the nature of the pacing. "Where was the plot going?" was something constantly swirling in my head, because it felt like it was going one way before doing something completely different. The editing was at times cheesy CGI effects that didn't make sense, especially towards the end. Some of the music didn't fit the scenes or takes you out of focus. This next point might be polarized but the whole "morally grey" direction they went with the characters felt like a quick label to add as justification. While yes the rating, the whole mafia notion of the show makes you expect to see the morally grey side, I couldn't find any of that with the relationships, because they started off bad and didn't improve as the episodes went on. It felt more black and white, as in "here is character, this is their backstory, now their actions are justifiable". Yes, this is a fictional show, but some parts of it I can understand will make people very uncomfortable due to the execution of such scenes. Also, yeah this is a BL but the lack of women in this show really felt offside. They were mostly put in the plot as a "here's a woman" and then disappeared like a Thanos snap (the same feeling for a certain pairing was treated as a "side support character"). Give us more badass women in mafia shows, dammit!

I was expecting to jump into this mafia drama and be amazed, stunned, whatever else relates to shock in the dictionary, but a lot of it didn't jump out at me. There were some very interesting parts, don't get me wrong, but the entire plot was messy and didn't make much sense. This has cool action, great acting and a neat psychological dive, but that's really all I found were the best parts of KinnPorsche.

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Almost nonexistent plot line, basically just sex

*tw: rape, abuse, sex talk*

The acting was, without a doubt, absolutely amazing. Especially Bible (Vegas) and Build (Pete) as well as Apo (Porsche) delivered outstanding performances. As someone who didn’t read the book or saw the film, I was going into this completely blind and oblivious.

I didn’t like the toxicity in every relationship. The relationship I couldn’t stand at all was Kinn and Porsche. The writers glamorized rape, mental abuse and physical abuse as if it was a normal relationship. Kinn mentally abused Porsche throughout the whole series, gaslit him and stabbed him in the back multiple times.

I’m not saying Vegas and Pete’s relationship was a good one but it was honest and open. Definitely more enjoyable to watch than the main couple.

In the end, I don’t even recall WHAT THE SHOW IS ABOUT. In the beginning, there seemed to be a storyline but the more the show progressed, the more it was focus on sex and less on an actual story/plot.

If you want a BL version of 365 Days with a tint of fifty shades, go for it, but if you’re looking for a nice and action packed mafia romance with a good and watchable plot, this show is not for you.

Would give 7/10 but just for the performances of actors (if I were to review just the plot line, it’d be 4/10).

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Not what i expected

Ok so at the risk of being chastised i have to say i was pretty disappointed in the series it felt like they were making it up as they went along,i was so looking foward to this series but in my opinion soz but it was a flop.
It felt more love story than mafia and thats fine but come on now the trailer was a ruse to be fair,im not even gonna start on the fact that gameplay wasnt casted.
Okay maybe not their fault but wow i just feel like i totally wasted my time i commend their acting and that but the whole storyline was so ridiculous to the point im pretty sure my kids could of done better,i mean wth kinn and porshe spend more time having sex and arguing than anything else.
Cant fault the vegas and pete story coz that weren't bad sad but realistic.
Hmmm kim an porchay well what to say non existent really kim saved him a couple times got a porchay got a kiss on the cheek told kim he loved him,got a bit hurt got a song done thats it lol what was the point ,the way it came about was just all a big let down an on top of all that mums back towards the end....................i mean really apart from the fact she seemed drugged up which no one noticed mind but hello where d the hell he hide her lol so much left unsaid and out in the open i hear they're gonna do a season 2 well good luck to them 😉 think ive seen enough,again this is only my opinion just feel cheated lol.

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Decent story, many story holes but MARVELOUS ACTING ???

Did it live up to the hype that it got before airing? The answer is Yes and No, for obvious reasons.
The story itself was decent. It had several questioning moments that didn't make sense but overall it was alright.
The actors and their acting skills are what made this show shine. From the main couple to the side characters, the side couples everything was terrific. Even though there were obvious story holes for particular couples( VegasPete, KimChay), at the end of the day it was somewhat easy to understand what was going on.
The character development was done perfectly and I really liked that. For certain parts, it felt like they rushed some things but overall it was interesting and intense. The soundtrack was amazing.

There are moments where the characters( the couples) enjoy the abuse, the violence, the torture, and the toxicity of the other partner. Speaking of which, the love between the couples is toxic af. I totally understand where that is coming from (from past trauma), but promoting it is not good. It fits the story but it's not something that is healthy. Keep it in mind because it's a story after all, but some will find it disturbing.

Is it the best BL out there? No, but it's not the worst. Many BLs these days are coming strong and this one was no exception, but is definitely not the best. Give it a try, it is definitely worth a watch if you enjoy these kinds of topics.

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